b) Shakespeare’s history
 | Macbeth was most likely written between 1605 and 1606
| followed the succession of James the Sixth of Scotland (member of the
Stuart dynasty) to the English throne, as James the first of England in March
1603 it is very likely that Shakespeare chose a Scottish subject because
of that event
| play was certainly written with James in mind and there is a story that he
even wrote a letter of acknowledgement to Shakespeare
| patronage (a writer composes one of his works for a king, a queen
or another rich or important person) - play pays tribute to the interests and
knowledge of James: | "witchcraft (Act I and Act IV), apparitions (Erscheinungen) and ghosts (Act II and Act III) and the King’s Evil (Act IV) were areas of great concern to James, he even wrote a book (emonology, 1597) on the subject - the play compliments James by making Banquo (who is said to be his ancestor) a hero in the play, because he does not - unlike Macbeth - fall into evil; Banquo historically never existed; in Holinshed’s play he was an accomplice in the murder of Duncan (a reminder of this would not have pleased James!) - play contains the issue of kings`ip and loyalty, which were of great importance to James - had survived an assassination attempt early in his life - his father, Lord Darnley, had been murdered his mother, Mary Queen of Scots, had been executed as a traitor - the questions of the role of the monarch and the duties of their subjects towards them were always of major importance to him; he believed that the monarch has the same position as a god and voilence against him is an act of blasphemy - play propably refers to the topical (aktuell) events of the Gunpowder Plot of November 5th 1605 (a conspiracy against teh king and t`a Apliament) and the following trials of its conspirators (Act II, Scene 3); Shakespeare himself almost certainly knew some of the conspirators (they were from his home county Warwickshire) - equivocation (Zwei-/Mehrdeutigkeit) is a major theme of the play, the Jesuit Henry Garnet confessed it in his trial in 1606 (after the Gunpowder Plot); helped to fix the date the play was written - Malcolm’s gift of earldoms at the end of the play alludes to King James’s liberal ga``ng of English titles to his Scottish supporters - the world Shakespeare lived in was very different from today’s: the political issue of succession and order was of major importance England was not the industrial, scientific and urban society that it is
now; belief in witchcraft was widely spread
| in 1604 the practise of witchcraft became punishable by death, because it
was believed that it attempted to change God’s natural order.
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